Kendall had packed all of her life up into two blue suitcases. This amazed her mother - the whole car ride to the school, she kept asking Kendall if she was sure she'd brought enough stuff. Her mother's make-up collection wouldn't fit into two suitcases, never mind all the rest of her stuff. Kendall ignored her for the most part, occasionally making a sarcastic comment her mother failed to pick up on.

On a very basic level, Kendall and her mother looked alike. They had the same frizzy, untameable brown hair, the same set of slightly crooked front teeth, the same long nose, the same devious smile and the same high cheekbones. However, years worth of plastic surgery and expert application of make-up had fixed all her mother's imperfections, making her the image of a famous movie star. She'd even chopped all her hair off, dyed it blonde, and wore extensions (which were, Kendall had to admit, highly realistic looking). Kendall couldn't fathom the effort her mother put in to look beautiful, and had no ambition to follow in her footsteps. She kind of liked her teeth; it made her look menacing.

"Why are you staring at me? Do I have lipstick on my teeth?" Her mum squinted in the wing mirror, trying to angle it to see her reflection.

"Your teeth are fine." Kendall said hurriedly, lest her mum cause an accident. She then retreated back into her shell of silence, blocking out her mum's attempts to tell her about some new TV show she was guest starring on. The show actually sounded rather cool, and Kendall had planned on watching it before her mum told her she was going to be in a couple of episodes. Kendall didn't care if it wasn't very daughterly of her to avoid everything with her parents in it at all costs. She saw enough of her parents in real life without the added bonus of a TV screen, plus even though she knew it was just acting, it was kind of freaky to see her mum flirt with someone who wasn't her dad. God forbid she stumbled across a sex scene.

"Oh, look! There's the school." Her mum seemed relieved they'd finally arrived. She probably couldn't handle the one-sided conversation much longer. Kendall herself was already sick of it. She leaned out the window, craning her neck to catch a view of the school. To her disappointment, it was a bog-standard school building, with nothing to differentiate it from her own school. She'd expected something a bit more Malory Towers-esque, especially due to its location on a cliff overlooking the sea. Boarding school must not be like the way Enid Blyton described it, which was a shame, as midnight feasts sounded like something she could get on board with.

The building actually looked very out of place surrounded by the beautiful scenery, a classic example of modernisation and the human urge to build stuff everywhere causing harm to nature. Her mum pulled into the staff car park, and insisted on helping Kendall tow the cases, even though she could handle it just fine on her own. She eyed the cars, half-wondering how easy it would be to hot-wire one. In a school full of delinquents, she was sure someone had the skills to steal a car.

A woman in a lilac flowery pantsuit was waiting at the front of the school building for them. Kendall liked the outfit well enough, but it didn't seem to fit with the fifty year old woman wearing it. "Good morning!" The woman beamed at them, with way too much enthusiasm. "I'm Mrs Moore, and it's lovely to welcome you to our school."

Her mum shook Mrs Moore's hand. "Thank you so much for taking her as a late arrival." Kendall rolled her eyes at her mum's obvious sucking up, whilst feeling slightly impressed by the fact Mrs Moore hadn't broken out into raptures over her famous mother. She supposed the teacher dealt with a lot of rich parents, and celebrities simply didn't faze her anymore. "If I'm being honest, I don't know what to do with her anymore." Her mum dropped her tone to a confidential whisper, although Kendall could still hear it clear as day. "She seems determined to fight the whole world." Kendall felt oddly pleased at that statement.

"Don't worry, we'll soon knock that out of her!" The teacher said lightly, whilst Kendall mentally added, Not literally, I hope. Even if it was literal, Kendall was pretty sure she could take any of the teachers. In fact, she'd welcome the opportunity to a knock a few people out. "Why don't you come with me, and we'll discuss things in my office?" Her mother nodded her assent, dragging a reluctant Kendall along behind her.

Apparently, the route to the headmistress' office included the entire school, which Mrs Moore described in detail as they passed each room. Kendall suspected she'd been conned into taking a tour, which was highly unnecessary as she'd never be able to remember where everything was. What she surmised was that the school had a lot of classrooms (standard), small rooms for one-on-one therapy sessions (frightening) and many facilities for recreational activities. There seemed to be a library, a film room for Saturday nights, a pool, a gym, and even an impressive looking boxing area. "We find it helps a lot of our girls with anger management problems to channel their energy into a controlled environment like boxing." Mrs Moore explained. "Instructors come in on Sundays for training sessions, and the area is monitored to ensure all fights are safe. Although perhaps in your case, Kendall, it wouldn't be the best idea to let you loose in here." She twittered at her joke, although it left Kendall wondering whether the teacher was trying to insinuate she had an anger management problem.

Once Mrs Moore got started describing the facilities there was no stopping her. Apparently you could go horse riding, learn sports, there was even a few different religious areas for students who wanted them. Kendall knew the teacher was trying her best to impress her, but she couldn't help thinking that the school was almost too good. Regardless of the amount of money paid out, it seemed rather unfair to let girls who's broke the law learn how to use a bow and arrow, and potentially dangerous. She wasn't complaining, she'd probably use the facilities herself, but it didn't stop her from thinking it.

At long last, they reached the headmistress' office. Her mother and Mrs Moore began an animated conversation about her as soon as they sat down, acting as though she was invisible as her mum complained and Mrs Moore nodded sympathetically whilst telling her mum about how brilliant this place was. Eventually, they remembered about Kendall and Mrs Moore cleared her throat.

"So, Kendall, what do you think?" She opened her mouth, but discovered the question was rhetorical as the teacher steamrolled on. "This is first and foremost a wellness centre, and there are no end to the benefits you can receive if you co-operate with us. We have many trained counsellors among the staff, so there are lots of therapy sessions available to you."

"No thanks." Kendall said immediately. Her mother shot the headmistress a look that clearly said, 'Do you see what I'm talking about?' Mrs Moore frowned.

"I'm afraid these sessions are mandatory. As a new arrival, for the first month or two here you'll be required to attend an hour long one-on-one session three times a week. We can look at reducing that if we see improvement. There's also group sessions at the weekend. The groups are small with 10 students at the most, so we've slotted you into group C alongside your roommates. That runs for an hour every Sunday morning."

By no means did Kendall agree with the suggestion that she needed therapy. She didn't have some sort of sick, psycho need to hurt people, nor did she have buried anger management problems. She just enjoyed fighting - or perhaps more accurately - enjoyed winning. Also, people pissed her off. The despicable nature of most human beings wasn't something an obscene amount of therapy sessions could fix. The group session, however, seemed mildly more interesting. She wouldn't object to finding out some of the reasons why people had ended up here, and she was sure she could cause some disruption.

"Of course, Hamilton Heights is a school." Mrs Moore added. "We pride ourselves on helping students get the grades they want whilst handling their various challenges in life. A good lot of students are ready to start life at university both mentally and academically by the time they leave, and we hope you'll be the same. So that leads me to the question; which A levels do you want to study?"

Kendall shrugged, which she soon regretted as it gave her mother the perfect opportunity to pitch in with a comprehensive list of her GCSE grades across each module. She'd gotten her final results a month ago, and hadn't been allowed to forget them. She'd always been good at literary based subjects, and had achieved an A* in English literature, and A in English language and a B for Religious Studies. History really should have been a high-scoring subject as well, but she'd gotten a concussion from a fight the night before her second exam which resulted in a C grade. LLW she'd also managed to scrape a C in, but she'd failed Maths, Biology and Art. Her mark in Spanish (ungradeable) had been particularly offensive, as her mother reminded her of now.

After her mother's spiel, which she'd added tears to at the part about Spanish since the last time Kendall was on the receiving end of it, Mrs Moore looked down at the piece of paper in front of her. The paper contained all the details of Kendall's GCSE grades along with comments from her old teachers, making her feel slightly sorry for the headmistress who had used her own Kleenex supply to placate her mother. "Some of our students do four AS levels, then either drop down to three or continue on with four. However three is standard and what most universities base admission criteria on, so I'd recommend you stick with three." Mrs Moore smiled. Kendall wondered what she'd look like with her front two teeth punched out.

"Obviously, you'll have to repeat your Maths GCSE, but our teachers here are excellent and I'm confident you'll pass it this time round. English literature is a clear choice for A-level, and Religious Studies is a good option too. Your reports from your History teacher suggest you underperformed in that particular exam, so you could continue with it, or try a new subject. How do you feel about Sociology or Politics?"

Kendall thought Politics sounded rather interesting, but didn't want to let that show. Instead she said casually, "I wouldn't mind doing English Lit, History and Politics. It's the lesser of two evils."

Mrs Moore seemed happy enough with her choices, writing them down on her page. She was a fellow leftie, Kendall realised, although the teacher's writing was far more legible than her own. "Great. Now, all that's left to do is choose a sporting activity. You can do other activities such as music or drama as well, but we like everyone to take on at least one sport." Mrs Moore gave her a stern look. "And before you ask, kickboxing or judo or anything like that isn't an option for you."

This was something Kendall wasn't too opposed to. Her fitness levels meant she was an asset in PE classes, no matter what sport they were tackling. She'd never joined an actual sport team, it was too much commitment, but she figured without fighting she'd need something to occupy her time here. "Rugby?" She said hopefully. She'd seen some pretty dangerous looking tackles on the TV before, and figured she'd be a natural at the sport. "Or hockey. Or even football." There was some leniency there when it came to 'accidentally' kicking someone whilst trying to get the ball.

"Actually, we would prefer you do something non-contact." Kendall was beginning to wonder whether she meant the school staff or the royal 'we'. "I was thinking netball."

"Netball?" Kendall choked. Netball was the sport all the prissy girls at her old school played because they didn't want to get too sweaty or disgusting playing a real sport. Could it even really be classified as a sport? You couldn't even run with the ball!

"She would love to do netball." Her mum said firmly, and before she had a chance to protest further, Mrs Moore had signed her up and was leading them out of the office towards the west side of the building where all the rooms were.

As they walked, Mrs Moore started to go over room rules, which apparently were so great in number they were a separate section of the school rules. Kendall didn't bother listening too hard, as she wasn't planning on keeping the rules anyway. All she picked up on was that she was only allowed to use her personal electrical appliances inside her room, blah blah blah, and this privilege would be taken off her if she misbehaved, blah blah blah. Most of the rules were pretty common, such as no murdering your roommates, which Kendall felt half-tempted to make a sarcastic comment on. The concern that the headmistress wouldn't pick up on her sarcasm and think she was genuinely disappointed was was what held her back.

So she didn't engage in any way until they actually reached her room door (number 12 on the 3rd floor). Mrs Moore smiled down at her. "Ready to meet your roommates? I understand it must be somewhat nerve-racking."

Taking a quick dislike to the patronising tone which she suspected she'd be heading rather a lot of around here, she smiled back, teeth on full display. "Oh, I'm not nervous at all." She said truthfully. "I just hope that they're ready to meet me."

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Hi guys! Thank you so much for reading this! I feel like this chapter was a little slow, but I needed to lay the groundwork for life at Hamilton Heights so don't worry, things will pick up soon. I'm so excited for the roommates to be introduced, which you can look forward to in the next chapter. I think another update will be pretty soon, I'm writing away at this story at the moment and it's my main priority. Let me know what you thought of the chapter!

- Zoe